Studioblog (n): a blog by Studiobanks about design, marketing, internet, business, Charlotte and more.

Sagmeister Video on TED.com

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TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from those three worlds. Since then its scope has expanded to include topics such as business, culture, arts, science and global issues. TED.com makes the best talks and performances from TED conferencees available to the public, for free. Inspired talks are given by the world's greatest thinkers and doers inlcuding: Al Gore, Bono, J.J. Abrams, Jeff Bezos and Stefan Sagmeister, just to name a few.

You may recall that AIGA Charlotte hosted a wildly successful event with Sagmeister in uptown Charlotte, back in April. Stefan Sagmeister formed the New York based Sagmeister Inc. in 1993 and has since designed for clients as diverse as the Rolling Stones, HBO, and the Guggenheim Museum. Having been nominated five times for the Grammies he finally won one for the Talking Heads boxed set. He also earned practically every important international design award.

Check out his funny and inspirational talk: "Yes, design can make you happy".

Happy Halloween from Studiobanks!

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Marty McFly, Jesus, Bunny, Skeleton and Pilot

Studiobanks Claims Victory in the Innaugural SBCH Foosball Tournament

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Though dismissed by many as unsurprising news, Studiobanks emerged victoriously in the 1st round, 2nd round and overall champion of the first-ever Studiobanks-Carbonhouse foosball tournament.

After winning 7-5 in round 1 at Carbonhouse, Studiobanks kicked off round 2 with a string of four matches that closely resembled taking candy from a baby. Even after this stunning accomplishment, Studiobanks made yet another victory - a victory of displaying mercy. After growing somewhat weary of win-after-win, Studiobanks "lost" to Carbonhouse for a single, solitary match, finishing the second round 8-1.

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FlaCC: Flash C Compiler

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Earlier this month Peter Elst posted on his blog about the FlaCC Project. In a nutshell, FlaCC is a way to compile C and C++ libraries to ActionScript bytecode, making code written in the C/C++ languages accessible to Flash. Interpreters for various scripting languages are actually written in C/C++ so this could allow you to port Ruby, PHP or Python into your AIR applications.

This video from Adobe MAX Chicago is enough to entice your imagination:

(New Project) Duke Energy

Christy 1 Comments

We get extra excited when we're approached with website projects where one of the primary goals is to push both the design and technology envelope. So when Duke Energy retained us to work on a large internal communications project that requires innovative, cutting-edge design that integrates the latest website technology, we said "Count us in!" We couldn't be happier about working with them and look forward to sharing more with you as the project unfolds!

Advanced ActionScript 3 with Design Patterns

Will 0 Comments

Being a predominately self-taught web developer, I’ve slowly migrated towards object oriented programming and, to my credit, made some applications that work but, at the same time, those apps definitely could have been made better and more efficiently.

A couple of weeks ago, I finished reading Advanced ActionScript 3 with Design Patterns by Joey Lott and Danny Patterson and found it quite helpful. Now knowing what the MVC, singleton, proxy, iterator, composite, decorator, command, memento and state patterns are I can better utilize them in my Flash projects and ultimately make better coded apps than I could before.

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Carbonhouse Mysteriously Reschedules Foosball Match Against Studiobanks

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In a move that is sure to crush many excited, expecting viewers, the opening game of the Carbonhouse vs. Studiobanks Foosball tournament has been rescheduled by Carbonhouse.

No reason was immediately given by the representatives at Carbonhouse, so feel free to speculate both the cause and consequence of this surprisingly sudden schedule change via blog comment below.

(New Project) Crossroads Charlotte

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What course will Charlotte-Mecklenburg chart over the next ten years as we deal with issues of access, inclusion, equity and trust for all residents in the social, political, economic and cultural life of our community? This is a question that I know we are all asking ourselves in one way or another during these uncertain times. This is also THE question Crossroads Charlotte is posing to our community.

What is Crossroads Charlotte? First of all, it’s one of the latest projects we’ve been working on. Studiobanks has been tasked with re-designing the Crossroads Charlotte website in an effort to provide a more dynamic and interactive means for Crossroads to get its message across and provide opportunities for organizations, institutions and individuals to take action in the future of our community. So what EXACTLY IS Crossroads Charlotte?

Started in 2001, Crossroads Charlotte is a large-scale civic engagement initiative designed to examine the possible futures of our community and to enlist residents and organizations to help steer the future of Charlotte-Mecklenburg. This project is a special initiative of Foundation for the Carolinas and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and is managed by the Community Building Initiative.

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(New Project) Summer is Over?

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I cannot believe the Summer has come and gone. Whew, have we been busy! I wanted to give you a quick update on some of the things we've been up to. Sorry I've been so behind in keeping everyone in the loop! We have a lot of projects in the works right now and I'll be able to announce some of the others we're working on in the coming weeks.

First of all, we are just wrapping up the development on a huge project for one of our favorite clients, Muzak. I'll be able to share more once this puppy launches, but I can tell you, this was a real team effort; Banks, Robbie, Will and Michael rocked this one out!

We have several projects that are getting ready to go into development now. We’re pleased with the diverse mix of businesses we have on our plate, because we’ve been able to innovate and try some new, edgy things! We look forward to sharing these with you too, once they're finished.

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Creatively Networked

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I finally had a chance to catch one of the Charlotte Chamber’s Creative Industries Council's cool events last night at Carolina Actors’ Studio Theatre, or CAST. I overheard board member and Art Institute President Brad Janis say that they like to choose unique environments for their meetings, so it was neat getting to visit this independent experiential theatre for the first time.

About 60 people or so gathered at 6 pm to network with a diverse mix of Charlotte creatives. The council doesn’t limit itself to any specific industry so I met lots of fabulous media professionals, performing artists, printers, painters, graphic designers, agency representatives, writers and many others.

In addition to networking and spreading some Studiobanks love, my $20 registration fee got me two drink tickets and delicious hors d’oeuvres. An hour into the networking we were called to the main theatre to watch an entertaining snippet from the current production, Foxfire, by CAST’s passionate volunteer actors.

If you’re a social butterfly like me who enjoys meeting people and promoting your business, definitely try to catch the next one on Tuesday, December 16th.